This is a very good point. I can see online medicine advantageous to those who have been prescribed preventative long term treatments (take daily doses for high cholesterol or blood pressure), but for common short term ailments, there could be risks of delaying treatment until medicines are received (take antivirals for shingles or influenza or antibiotic for a bacteria infection).
One possibly needs to consider risks if one needs to wait a few days before receiving the prescribed treatment recommended by their medical practioner. Maybe one should speak to their medical practitioner about risks of potential delays for new prescription medications/treatments.
This is a total pain - but that is as much about government requirements to revisit a doctor every X repeats.
However within the restrictions of that, the Chemist Warehouse system could work well, provided that you are happy to be locked in with them.
That is, they hold the prescription and internally update the number of repeats, so there is no lead time on the subsequent dispensing - until the prescription runs out and then you are back to square 1.
Adding: However the original article said it was an âear infectionâ, which sounds like a one-off thing and you would not want to wait 2 weeks stuffing around with Chemist Warehouse, assuming that itâs a prescription medicine and assuming that CW wonât dispense until they hold the prescription.
One is an Amcal member, one is a Guardian member and the third is a Pharmacy First member which claims to be a Qld group but I could only find the Mt Isa store.
So at least 2 of the 3 pharmacies are members of national buying groups.
Thatâs where the PC could come in - and look at the wholesale prices being offered to those buying groups v. the wholesale prices being offered to other groups. Also, branding itself costs money. They would also need to look at any freight (delivery) component of the price. In other words, break the final retail price down into who is getting the dollars and why.
A challenging situation.
It was not evident whether the prescription was for a PBS registered medication or whether the online price was for a brand name product or generic alternative.
I see the same
Is it worth asking why Chemist Warehouse or another big chain has not established in The Isa or purchased one of the existing business to get a foot in the door? Are they blocked absolutely or is the cost of establishing too high to justify the return?
Certainly we are discussing one of the larger inland towns in western Qld. Many others have just one pharmacy, just as they have one super market and one doctor. The same discussion about the cost of providing services or products, limited options and for perishables rubbish product are shared across many of the other western towns. Even for those that have a Big chain such as Woolies, for a comparison of say Blackwater vs Indooroopilly in Brisbane, it is difficult to say the two have the same owner except for the branding at the checkout.
I find it equally confusing when as a comparison I can walk into many urban shopping areas of Brisbane and find an âindependentâ Pharmacy trading within a few doors of a Chemist Warehouse, Terry White, Priceline etc.
P.S.
Perhaps as others have suggested the free market is not the best option for the provision of any essential service until communities attain a certain size/status and access to low cost transport.
Iâll note that whether I flew to the Isa on a Qantas jet from Brisbane or Saab from Townsville one way, it was the most expensive ticket per hour short of a private charter on an executive jet. It was cheaper to fly from Brisbane return to Perth or New Zealand. However for some reason beer made in Victoria costs about the same regardless.
That is an easy one. They are franchises not company owned stores.
CW Retail Services Pty Ltd is the franchisor to the franchise network of retail pharmacy businesses trading under the Chemist Warehouse name ( Chemist Warehouse ). There are over 350 individual stores and over 6,000 staff employed throughout the franchise network.
I suspect the chemists in far away locations and having little to no competition as well as some legislated business protections see no reason to pay fees for a marketing plan focused on volume with low prices, as prosper in citified areas.
A rub is that The law says no pharmacist in Australia is allowed to own more than five or six pharmacies in any one state or territory.
There is a bit of pushback. AFR might be subscription walled so click sparingly.
As a practical matter for franchises they usually start in the metro areas to gain critical mass. As they proliferate through franchises each pharmacist franchisee can have five or six, but when they target a location for expansion they have limitations.
It seems there is a convoluted protection radius for existing pharmacies, with other mandates . See Schedule 1 parts 1 and 2.
So it is not so easy to set up, and would be more difficult the smaller the town.
Mt Isa has a population of around 18,588 and is reasonably prosperous.
In stark contrast, Nambour has a population of around 11,187 and is one of the most down at heel, hand to mouth places I have ever seen, with a large percentage of business premises vacant, and a large percentage of the occupied business premises involved in charity, homeless support and other not for profit services.
Nonetheless, Nambour does have a Chemist Warehouse and 3 other pharmacies.
If a backwater like Nambour can support a Chemist Warehouse and the 3 other pharmacies are surviving, then I can only surmise that the pharmacists in Mt Isa are absolutely killing it.
Nambour services a much larger surrounding population than just the township. Itâs my backyard. It has a number of govt offices including lands registry and some regional Sunshine Coast Council service providers. It is possible one two of the smaller pharmacies may just be holding out on the future value of their position in the general service area. Many locals will be travelling to Nambour for their business. Need a tractor or agricultural supplies. Itâs Gympie to the north or south of Caboolture or way way out west.
P.s. Mount Isa is far from prosperous. It has a blend of well off and many on very low incomes. It also offers the only services for 100âs of km in every direction. My time working out of town left a slightly different impression, other than the Red Earth or Irish Club?
As you would be aware, the Nambour Mitre 10 is the only hardware game in town with the nearest Bunnings being at Maroochydore.
Last December, I bought a large pack of screws for my son-in law from the Mitre 10 for almost $150 but he did not use them and he bought an identical pack from Bunnings for around $80.
Whilst pre-cooking items on Xmas eve, my third and last remote Bunnings BBQ thermometer failed and I dashed into Nambour and the only place with any was the Mitre 10.
I bought the Weber remote unit at the full RRP of $149.99 after they refused to provide a senior citizen discount, a Xmas discount or any other discount.
The Chemist Warehouse may be keeping the pharmacies âhonestâ in Nambour but without a Bunnings, watch out for hardware price gouging.
Meanwhile back in Mt Isa, it appears that Bunnings are keeping hardware prices âhonestâ whilst the pharmacies are literally treating it as the Wild West.
Not a lot to do with pharmacies. Bunnings are not in Nambour because they have already done the customer assessment. Why build another outlet and take business away from the other four stores on the Sunshine Coast to pick up the missing volume in Nambour. I would have gone to Trade Tools Direct in Nambour for most things.
Remember hardware is a free market with no pharmacy guild style closed shop regulation. I regularly shop at two of the local co-ops and often enough at Bunnings. There is a wide range of products I purchase from smaller local suppliers Bunnings either do not stock or are stocked as a cheap low quality alternative.
Itâs a choice we all make. How much in real money and time to drive the 35km each way to Bunnings or 2km to the local supplier.
We have a few newcomers who expect an infinite range of David Jones style and quality products at $2 shop prices. Just as it was in Sydney or Melbourne.
There is no perfect solution. Those who would think a more open market for pharmaceuticals should also ask for all public hospitals to close and open competition between an all private hospital system. Not my choice.
In an ideal Bunnings future there will be two types of town. Those with a Bunnings and those with no hardware store. The price will be what ever Bunnings demand, and the range, what ever is most profitable.
Need Banana blue bunch bags. Donât Ask Bunnings.
Need 25 litres of diKamba-M. Donât Ask Bunnings.
Need a real zero turn ride on mower. Donât Ask Bunnings.
With rural district pharmacies the side lines are a small turn over. In Chemist Watehouse you walk past a lifetime supply of hair colour and perfume to find the one small shelf of bandaids or the dispensary. Perhaps the real reason the large chains donât push harder in the bush is such stuff as hair colour and perfume are low turnover. These high margin products will not sell enough volume to pickup the low margins on the dispensary? Ode de Horse or two stroke exhaust trumps Chanel no 5 all the time?
P.s.
Yes I wish every time I purchased locally the one of only one on the shelf it was as cheap as the one of 1,000 on the shelf at Bunnings or Chemist Warehouse. What price that 70km return trip for two screws or a $7.50 drill bit, or my favourite shave gel. The option for the bush is one large pharmaceutical or hardware supplier for a district putting 5 or 6 smaller more convenient locals out of business. Those in the larger town will celebrate the savings, while everyone else will lament the extra hour drive.
Something that is harder to appreciate when you live in a city on the coast.
This may be news to some but it has been the case for a long time. Oh that we had a searchable online public database of political donations that was kept up to date and accurate instead of being months out of date and anonymous for a large amount of money. How hard is it now to make many anonymous donations all under the $13,800 reporting threshold?
The other way they spend up big is with lobbying campaigns any time a review recommending change or a potential competitor starts to get some airplay. Just to protect the clientele of course.
Itâs easy if you use an Aldi plastic shopping bag stuffed with cash. Seriously, Iâm pretty sure that you canât use a series of separate payments to skirt around the law. I would expect that the reporting threshold is applied against the sum of the payments. Is it possible to break the law? Yep. Is it wise for a political party to ignore obviously shady behaviour? Probably not.
That will be revealed at the next election. Odds on it depends on how long ago they executed their shady behaviour countered by the roll-out of âchannelled fundsâ to marginal seats moderated by who actually cares in the electorate to vote for ânot themâ including preferences.
There is evidence it has been wise for the political parties to not only ignore but defend their own shady behaviour. I have wondered almost daily why the perps have not been formally charged excepting they always excise themselves from many laws, hide behind secrecy, simply reject assertions and move on, ⊠I trust I do not need to belabour the point since the press reports on it almost daily of late.
It is because there is no body responsible for doing it. The Auditor General has no such power. The Federal Police will only act if there is clear evidence of breaking statute law, they will not pursue something as vague as sports rorts where it is arguable if the Minister did or did not have the legal power to direct the outcome. This latest flurry of pork barrelling is something that doesnât sit right with many people but with nobody independent having the power to get into nothing will happen.
You will note the opposition may go on about specific cases but not about establishing a federal ICAC who might go peeking into their own cupboard looking for skeletons.
I found the comments by one of the senior investigators of the NSW ICAC very relevant. He said most of the big cases that resulted in prosecutions were a result of tip offs. The ICAC had the will and the resources to then go looking for hard evidence, the McDonald/Obeid case is an example.
In the federal arena there is no investigative body for the honest whistleblower to go to. They have seen examples of those who go public without the ability to uncover enough hard evidence to support them and mostly they donât want to roll the dice between reporting corruption they cannot stomach and career suicide with huge stress for them and their family.
Bring on a well funded federal ICAC with a wide scope and no statute of limitations. It might cost many millions but given the billions that go out in direct payments, prefered contracts, policies that pick winners and losers and other ways to get a nose into the public trough even if such a body found nothing at all (a most unlikely possibility in my view) it would be money well spent just to improve public confidence in our leaders - democracy could well do with it.
I think you have interpreted my question more widely than it was intended to be. All I specifically meant was: Is it wise for a political party to ignore the fact that a donation was made in an obviously shady way? Things have a way of catching up with you. There are laws controlling donations. The law does however move slowly. Election or no election makes no difference, unless the incoming government revises the law to make previously illegal donations legal.
It is kind of amusing in a dark way that at the same time that the Federal government is proposing to limit cash transactions to $10,000, they are exempting political parties (among other exemptions) from that law. Is that a good look?
None of this has any relevance to the Pharmacy Guild, who have made donations that have been properly disclosed (and presumably not in used $5 notes).
